The Strength that He exhibits
by Gilded Blue
Summary: Gohan reflects on his father's death, his mother's overbearing love, and Vegeta's growing influence. G/V, slashy, dark.
1. The Strength that He exhbits

**The Strength that He exhibits **

(And I must watch.)

Watch, with eagerness and reserve as he destroys every piece of the fabric of my moral backbone. He unleashes the darkness, it eats a little more at me with each talk, with every "lesson."

I wonder if this is how Frieza treated you.

Always kind of acted like a father in a fucked up sort of way, right? Always pinned it on you after the beatings, but kindly forgave you once you learned your lesson. Took you out, "taught" you new things, better things. You spent lots of alone time. You believed in him entirely. Once you gave up a little more of yourself, what your father had taught you.

So who are you, anyway? The Saiya-Jin prince clinging to a nonexistent culture and planet? The confused teenager that was too afraid to challenge Frieza? The one that excelled at everything all his life only to always find someone else to beat him down in the end? Who is it that I'm speaking to, Vegeta?

I remember how you were, on Namek. You laugh and scoff any time I bring it up, that golden little fragment of time before my father died. You either don't want to think of my father's life or you don't want me to think of my father's death, but one way or another you're trying to scrub the two of us squeaky fucking clean of Son Gokou.

So what is it that you're aiming at here, Vegeta? Shall I keep guessing all night? Do you see how I obsess over you, over your every single minute fucking detail? I try to get inside your brain, I've convinced myself so easily that you relate to me.

If you look at things in a very interesting way, I'm kind of a prince myself. I'm kind of entitled to something great as well. I've inherited something great from my father too, and like you as a teenager I will fail to honor this and ultimately disappoint him. There was once potential and now just darkness, and darkness deeper than that.

Harder.

Sometimes, it hurts _so bad..._

I'm groaning here, in my seat, as I write this. I'm not sure how I feel about anything and I'm so sure that it was always your intention to confuse me. You just had to _grind _those thoughts into me. Even back then, on Namek, when you told me that we were _brothers, _when you touched me with a paternal weight I hadn't experienced in years. I smiled weakly at your advances, I wanted so intensely to trust you.

Something enormous like your power or your cock could shut me up though, you know. I'm sorry. Did I just say that? Am I talking, or am I writing? Is this all in my head?

I cough a little.

On Namek my father held me gently after I got my ass kicked by this brute. Vegeta, you knew him. The Ginyu force. I tugged on my dad's shirt, he spoke to me gently. We walked together, as equals as he scouted the area. Those few moments lasted forever. Almost.

Other things seem to go on forever. Things like you throwing me on to the floor in mid-battle and ripping all of my clothes off. The gravity chamber reeks of blood and sweat and sex.

Mostly blood. It's a gruesome thought, isn't it? The things he does to me. Thanks Dad, Daddy, Daddy, Dad, Father, Failure, whatever?

_Where were you when they left me all alone with him?_

_Where were you when I started to like it? _

I could do it. I could justify my anger at him. I really could. I think that it's reasonable to assume that this all goes back to my father. I think this all goes back to the fact that I'm so weak when my dad left I needed someone bigger and stronger to be in my life.

And I found one.

_Oh yeah _I found one.

I'm mostly breathing when I'm moaning. Or screaming because it hurts. Or because you're rocking my world. Can I say that?

But I've learned something about putting my faith in you, Vegeta. You don't fail to disappoint, you're so generous in your attempts to prove to me that I cannot trust you. Every day is a new example of your cruelty and my faithful trust. I trust you, just like I did on Namek, only to get kneed in the gut, or in these newer cases, _fucked. _

I'm so confused. Bulma wants to help get me into a university. I loathe the idea of being closer to you. Think about it. I would be at or around Capsule Corporations almost constantly. I would probably move to the city. I would be dying to be close to you, you would hate me. More. More than you already do, you would hate me.

Incidentally, there is blood coming out of my eye. My face hurts so bad right now. Your saliva is still wet on my cheek. The sick feeling I get in my stomach to a crying baby and a doting mother. She frowns as she immediately rushes to clean my face. All of my cuts and bruises. I feel sick and get dizzy every single time after we've had sex as my mother sits and smiles at me before Goten finally starts to hurt himself to get her attention, sometimes by scratching his face and sometimes by hitting his head against something.

The productive nature of exploiting the quickness with which a mother will rush to correct the act of self destruction carried out by one of her own. How easily that child manages to manipulate her emotions, and even occasionally my own. I find that I stare at him quite very often. It makes me nervous, he makes me nervous.

Unsure of the bubbling and unpleasant bits of emotion rising in my stomach I always turn to leave. I take a long shower, always sure that you're in bed with the baby. Or at least preoccupied. Did you nurse with me as well? Can I ask you that? I love you so much, mother. And yet you waste away in the lull that is your devoted love for Goten. You're just pining for my dad, you know. Don't you get it, Mom? It's all a trick.

I sit at my desk all night. I do not sleep. These are the things that I think, and more. Sometimes you can hear me, the turning of pages or scratching of my pen at the desk. You don't bother to confront me about not sleeping anymore. I think at this point you're just ignoring it. You're so exhausted yourself. It's so hard being a single mother. You've got to do what you can to make money. You've got to support Goten. Thinking of training him to honor my late father? Why, wonderful.

No, really you should do it. I can't. Vegeta and I are very busy when I'm not learning in class.

You don't like me spending so much time with _him. _I know.

You don't like how rough he can be. How often I need stitches. I know.

You think I should take it easy. You're worried about me. You gently touch my shoulder and our eyes lock for a moment. But Goten whines, tugging at your skirt while picking his nose. I roll my eyes and look up in annoyance and disgust but you pretend not to notice, picking him up. He snuggles against your cheek and chest and undoubtedly takes in your soft scent and the warmth of your flesh. I remember it all very vividly, the _sensation _of being your son.

Our family time is mostly a delicate balance of the baby and you trying to not piss me off. I'm really sorry, mother. I really am, of everyone I've ever known you've never let me down. You are beautiful to me and yet I am making myself alien to you. You don't recognize me, but rest assured that I hardly recognize myself.

You're almost begging for me to stick around but you know and accept with dignity the fact that I am now going to my room because I need to spend the bulk of my time in this house alone.

Bulma calls me sometimes at night, wanting to go to a movie or dinner or swimming. She's got a kid, too. She always likes to keep up with me, just to see how I'm doing. She makes a fuss over me too, I always smile politely and thank her for everything she does to me.

There is something about this woman that makes every part of me pay attention to her. How many evenings have we spent together, how much could any boy take of the busty genius without falling head over heels?

You want to give me an internship? Just a leg up? What can I do for you? How could I ever possibly repay you? I'm eighteen and fresh and my little brother is six and my father is dead, but _you, _you are timeless Bulma. Like Vegeta.

The first rule that Vegeta really taught me was to take no prisoners. It was that you should always assume that when you turn your back it becomes someone else's target, so you should be responsible for defending yourself at all times.

It was later apparent that Vegeta'd been teaching me to not trust him for a long time. I'm a slow learner, alright? This became a problem when I finally realized I loved him.

You demand my compliance and obedience and adoration but reject so cruelly my love, Vegeta. I offer to devote myself to you on the smallest condition, the tiniest hope that I should be allowed to be yours forever and openly and you just ignore me. You ignore my friendship, you ignore me.

He asked me what world I lived in. I told him in short breaths that I lived in his world.

I've never known anyone quite like this.

Vegeta's hips are like Bulma's breasts. I can't even fucking handle it. I enjoy them in the strangest ways. I bite my lip as they approach me. They carry something beautiful to my face. I can't help but watch you. It's always when I talk about liking you so damn much that you beat me to a pulp.

My mom bleaches my school shirts now. She's learned to stop complaining about the blood that gets on them. It's a compulsion, I swear.

Vegeta taught me to focus, to keep my eyes on something I want. You'll never get anything if you don't focus. Without discipline and sacrifice there is no achievement. These are the things that Vegeta has taught me on the floor of the Gravitron on nights that my mom thinks I'm at the gym. She's got to know there's no reason I would go to the gym. She's got to know I'm above such a basic level of training.

Sometimes you have to learn to let go.

There are some things that you have to learn to live without believing in.

_There's something so painfully faithless about your eyes._

My hand is shaking as I fix myself a glass of whiskey. I've taken to drinking with Bulma, when I see her. I need to be able to drink when I'm with her. I need her to be able to see me as a man, and not think of it being cute. I take a shot. It's a concern.

When I drink with her these days she kind of mentions my dad offhandedly a lot. She seems to think it's weird that I don't want to talk about him. She looks at me with those big blue eyes.

Yes, I'm very proud of my father. Yes, he misses me very much. I say this to Bulma's cleavage. Such an awkward age for a boy like me. A childhood on the battlefield and all that I have left to do is procreate, apparently. My mother asks if I have a girlfriend. Sometimes I don't dignify the question with a response. I feel remorse when I see the hurt in her eyes. Bulma advises me to be sweet to ChiChi.

I'm kinda sweet. I can be so sweet. Let me be sweet to you, Bulma.

I'd almost prefer Vegeta's approach. The way his gloved hands dig into my hips during. I'd almost prefer his company and his touch, at least when Bulma comes to discussing the matter of a Son Gokou that existed long ago. There are no thoughts of dead men in our room. He's probably off doing something great. Wait until he gets a load of this. When he was dead before he would periodically check on us. Wait until he gets a load of this.

Vegeta always sneers when I make the slightest reference to my father's giving the living attention from heaven. The very thought of it disgusts me. He's like the doctor, he always knows just what I'm _wanting _or _needing. _Prescribes me something to get rid of the nasty thoughts echoing in my head when he's not there to drown them out with his deep voice and hands.

I watch Vegeta almost nonstop. Even when I'm not around him I'm playing the way that he moves over and over again in my mind. No matter how many times I learn to appreciate the way he punches me or lands a blow I cannot help but feeling surprise. I must be really fucking fun to him, I must be like a toy. I'll take all of the damage and even rise to the occasion if I have to. We train to the brink of our ability. These definite lines always blur. I always come out of it a little bit stronger, a little bit more like him.

After I see Bulma I invariably end up seeing Vegeta. He's noticed my crush on her to be certain, and if I didn't know better I'd say he was jealous. The Bulma situation tends to be precarious. Despite himself, the prince has taken a sudden interest in his first born son. He probably doesn't want the mother to be so openly sexual.

Let me be sweet to you, Bulma. You won't want anyone else after you've had me.

I can picture our intense and hurried lovemaking in the back of her lab, on the floor somewhere cold and isolated where Vegeta will never find out. We all have our secrets, right? Starved of all your sunlight, I could show you how very good it is to feel my pale skin on your warm flesh.

He barks his orders out at me. I'm always wanting to see his eyes. You have my full attention, flood me with your thoughts, let me become more of you so I can be less of myself. Be less of my father.

It's sort of cliche to say he's poetry in motion, but bear with me here. It's sort of dumb and fanboyish to say that his excellence has served to rid me of my prior ignorances and weaknesses. Am I afraid of being your fool? No. People have warned me about seeing you but the worse I hear, the worse I remember, the more willing I am to get the royal treatment.

Something very, very warped exists inside of my prince's brain. His broad shoulders and thick neck and perfect chest. The command that they assume. The scars I see him wear. The way blood looks on your face.

Bulma goes on dates at night with nearly everyone but Yamucha. I think she's afraid of giving him a shot. I think that she does it to forget Vegeta. This is her disguise, in sexual freedom and promiscuity she has found liberation. She doesn't necessarily realize the folly in her logic. The ultimate flaw in all of this reasoning: she won't see Yamcha because she's afraid of Vegeta finding out. So she goes out on dates to forget Vegeta with anyone that Vegeta wouldn't recognize.

_Loving is being oppressed, Gohan. _

Vegeta goes into a jealous rage over this sometimes. He doesn't love her, he loves to control her. I think she'd be a more willing slave if he had his way. But maybe that's why things are still kicking, maybe it's their shameless game, keeps things kinky. Learn new tricks. And maybe he wants to impregnate her again. I resent the new found attachment to his son. I liked him when he was a bastard son that Vegeta refused to recognize. Those were the days, when Bulma's heart assuredly belonged to Vegeta and by virtue of this we could do whatever we wanted.

Really humans aren't good enough for her. She's had the strongest human fighters, and even better the strongest living Saiya-Jin. Sometimes I have this dream of her, sitting around naked with her legs up and ready to spread themselves for me. She holds this beautiful sapphire between her cleavage, and she smiles at me warmly, inviting me to come on in, inviting me to feel this way for her.

I don't even know how I think about myself.

She broke through her emotional disease. Now like the rest of us she exists in fragments: _this is the part of me that fucks, this is the part of me that ceases to love, this is the part of me that fights, this is the part of me in pain and anguish, this is the part of me that likes it. _

I don't know what to make of it all, mostly. I just don't want to go home. I'm trying to defeat it, as a matter of fact, the notion of a _home. _ It doesn't matter to me anymore when the lights are dim in the gravity chamber at night. At first it's a struggle to stand. Then it's a struggle to run. Then the real training begins, then you have to fight. You move your body in time with another, dodging the painful blows and returning them with your own. Bodies crashing into each other. A force so powerful you flinch at the sound.

He practically waits for me most nights now. He knows I'm coming, he knows I need it and maybe regardless of my sentiments he just thinks it's genuinely _funny. _

Funny that with every step I take and every flick of my tongue I betray your memory, a little deeper and a little harder every night, as per usual, I dishonor you. I've shat on your message, I've disregarded your notions of peace and mercy. Even when I slowly manage to gather myself up from the sappy ball it is on the Gravitron floor and collect myself to go back home, to shower until my brother and mother are asleep so I won't have to see them or face this, even when I swallow, even when I beg, I'm spitting on something that I used to regard as golden and pure. _  
_

But when the light goes off and I'm naked lying in a small pool of my own blood, or his, and we're all done but I'm still waiting for Vegeta to come back in and take me some more, I feel so absolutely fucking _weightless... _

_

* * *

_I don't own DBZ. _  
_


	2. How Quickly The Night Did Fall

**How Quickly the Night Did Fall**

(And I Shall Follow You.)

The day that Son Goku looked at me and pulled my hair up. I remember it so clearly because it lasted for a whole year. Not just that time in the Hyperbolic Time chamber, it was that every moment that I spent in there with my father alone before he died will haunt me until I am strong enough to purge myself of it.

This moment pleases me, excites me, even. My all-powerful father has just turned me into a Super Saiya-Jin. Made a man out of me, or forced me to make a man out of myself. It was a mind fuck in there to be sure. I would have never used such language before.

The surreal atmosphere was nothing compared to the way that I saw my father. He was all-powerful, compelling, a trickster. I would dream of training in my sleep, and outside he would be awake. Ready to bark orders at me. My strength only knew the bounds of my body, but soon my exhaustion proved to be too much.

You got benevolent. I think you were afraid that I was dying. I looked at you over what felt like a mane and you smiled kindly back. Like this was a joke. I was maddened by the permanent taste of blood in my mouth and violence on my mind, with every day forming memories that all just formulated particle by particle only to turn out to be one bad fucking joke. "So Gohan, take it easy, okay?"

He said it gently.

And then I lashed back out against him. "If you don't train me hard I will never become a Super Saiya-Jin!" I cried out, powering up with everything that I had. Suddenly all I could hear was his voice, but I don't even remember what he was saying.

When I woke up my hair was cut and I was in a clean bed. I got up and found he left an apple for me to eat. I took it, smiling at it sweetly like it was a gift, a reward for my faith in him.

How much I must have looked like Vegeta at that moment. Like you yourself predicted it or even caused it, and you didn't even care to notice.

_**I've been having weird dreams lately…**_

_Deleted scenes come from within my bed,_

_What is it I should do instead?_

_Terror survives me, _

_Doom committed to my head, _

_Then I wake in the morning _

_Clamoring in my own dread. _

Sweat poured from my back when I woke up. It was so cold.

Every time you touch me I'm in Hell.

I know just exactly what you want.

"You self-indulgent fool," You mock me to the end. Your voice from earlier today echoes in my head. I immortalize every moment with you.

_**It's always at night. When I have them. **_

I feel dizzy. Something is incredibly satisfying about this moment.

You are so warm to me.

Bulma smiled over at me, "I'm glad you could make it, Gohan! I'm sorry I called you over so late."

I looked at her. She seemed a little frazzled. "Is something… wrong, Bulma?"

She pursed her lips for a second, trying to control herself. But with something like a helpless grin, she shrugged. "Vegeta."

The name tumbled off her lips. Like I expected to hear it. Like it made sense.

I hope she missed me swallow. "Vegeta, huh? What's wrong?" I was a little relieved, to be honest with you, when I heard the phone that Bulma gave me buzz in the midnight hour. Her name along with a little icon of her giggling flash on the screen and I answered it immediately. Of course it was an invitation out, she couldn't sleep and she wanted to watch a movie. She knew I would be up, that's all.

"I don't know. He finished training and was in a really bad mood and all beat up and we got into the stupidest argument because he has the worst attitude-"

"All beat up, huh?" I asked, running my hand through my hair. "Why's that?"

"Oh, Gohan!" Bulma said with a bit of a shrug. We walked up to the ticket booth. "That's all you Saiya-Jins think about! You know how vigorously Vegeta trains. That's not the point," she said matter-of-factly, "The point is that he's an infuriating, insufferable _asshole._"

Bulma should check the GC security tapes before lecturing me on Vegeta's training methods again.

I spent the second hour of the movie noticing how tired she was, yawning and letting her eyes doze a little. She noticed me watching and I looked away with a blush in the darkness. 'Trunks' she mouthed at me.

Bulma could blame anything on anyone else. Even if she loves them. Just to have an excuse to not be at her best.

I smiled a little too wide at the thought.

I spent the first hour of the movie watching how closely your hand looked to mine. In the darkness it looked like porcelain. You only wore rings on your wedding finger when you were out with Trunks.

I don't even have a clue what the movie was about.

Outside in the parking lot, the frosty black night that it was, you lit up. I couldn't help but watch the way that the cigarette and its little eerie, angry glow floated from the air to your lips and back again.

You looked at me a little uncertainly. Slowly I saw your arm creep out towards my chest in the darkness, box of cigarettes in hand. With that look in your eyes, like the only reason in the world I would have been looking at you was because I wanted to try one. I took the box, and the lighter out of it.

As I had seen her do so many times, I lit up.

I never imagined they would be so harsh.

I threw up blood half the night. I kind of smiled in a sick way as I watched the little blood and mucous mingle into one continuous being on my bathroom floor. _Well, now you know. _I thought.

I'm imagining my lungs, nice and warm and squishy and pink snuggling there comfortably in the embrace of my ribs, shielded by my muscle and flesh. The one place that no one else in the world has ever managed to get, Bulma Briefs you did it. I can just see the little black flecks on them, complaining, dying.

But I was not thinking of any of this at the time. I was willing myself to not cough. She looked at me with something like a knowing smile and giggled as she blew smoke in my direction.

I coughed.

She laughed.

You know, it's actually really annoying when she does that, but I think she knows that. The lights to the movie theatre flicker and then shut off. We're standing out in the cold and she's only wearing a sleeveless dress. She shivered a little bit.

I warmed. "Cold?" I asked, a little smirk forming on my lips.

How she loved to be teased or challenged. Her eyes lit up, "No!" She replied, turning from me a little bit.

I was feeling the buzz from the cigarette rushing to my brain. My fingers responded immediately, tingling as well. Tobacco and beautiful woman to incapacitate Super Saiya-Jin. See page three.

The wind blew and she blew out smoke. She shivered a little. I came up from behind. My hands were on her shoulders. Her flesh had no warmth to it at all, much to my surprise. My skin felt like fire in comparison to the cool marble that was the surface of her skin.

She eyed me from her shoulder. "So how's your Ma, Gohan?"

I sucked in air. She flicked her cigarette away. It illuminated the night and dispersed into little flecks about the cement and quickly died out.

"Mom's good." I nodded.

"Is she still busy with your little brother?" She asked. She was trying to get me to talk about my home life with her but she realized, bright as she was, that I hated it when she said my brother's name.

"He's fine as well. Everything is fine, Bulma."

"You know I talked to her the other day…"

My eyes sharpened, "About me? You talked to my mother about me behind my back?"

Bulma sucked in air, turning around and stepping back in one smooth movement. "It's not like that at all Gohan, now calm down. You know your mom's worried about you and I would never say anything to betray your trust, even if you have been lying to her about training with Vegeta."

I looked at her with wide eyes.

"That's where you go after school, isn't it? Well," Bulma crossed her arms over her chest, "She thought you were kind of love-sick. See what she knows." Her tone was arrogant, knowing.

I smiled despite myself.

Oh, Bulma.

"I do different things… not, you know, all the time. But yes, I just like training with Vegeta sometimes. Mom wouldn't get it."

Bulma's eyes are sympathetic. She puts a hand on my hand as we sit on a bench. She takes what's left of the cigarette in my hand and finishes it. Something inside of me gurgles at this. "I know that it's been really hard, but you either need to be a little more honest and give your mom some credit… or," Bulma sighed a little, looking up in the sky, "Lie better and be more discreet. Because no one's buying it."

I so admire your honesty.

"Be more discreet?" I asked, raising a brow.

"I can't believe it, I'm teaching my best friend's son how to lie better to his mother." Bulma rubs her head a little dramatically.

"But Bulma, you know that I'm just trying to protect my mother," I said with a little bit of a smile.

She relented. "Look, you need to change before and after you fight with him, or anyone else for that matter. I would recommend taking a shower, but please don't come in bleeding. This is common sense, Gohan." She says, almost reprimanding me.

I smile wider.

"Also, stop letting Vegeta pound your pretty face. And anything that would require relocating or sewing up or anything broken is definitely out. Take things more lightly."

"But Bulma…" I whined, "What's considered extreme to you is just standard for us."

Bulma frowned, "Vegeta does not have any reason to be beating you within an inch of your life every day!"

I rubbed my head, instantly flustered, "Look, what about the senzu beans?"

"What about them?" She asked.

"Well, let's go get some. Then I can train with Vegeta and recuperate quickly when things get a little too rough."

"I do not want you using that as your excuse." Bulma put her hands on her hips, insistent.

"Well, then build me a rejuvenation tank." I said, pointing a finger at her.

Bulma looked at me a little seriously for a second. "A rejuvenation tank?"

"Sure. I'm sure you've got something like that for Vegeta, don't you?"

Bulma sighed, rubbing her head. "I need you to come in tomorrow for measurements."

"What?"

"The tank I made was specifically for Vegeta."

"But the one that we used on Namek was standard." I said, frowning.

"That's for the 'low class fools that can't handle battle.'" Bulma said, undoubtedly quoting Vegeta. "The better ones apparently are like suits of armor, made to order if you will. Vegeta has certain weak points and so do you. I'll have to get a closer look at your body tomorrow and after I gather some data I'll be ready for you."

Sometimes I wonder if I hear the things she says correctly.

"Gohan?" She asks my blank face. "Do you want to come over?"

"Yeah, Bulma. I'll be there."

"But Gohan?" Bulma asked, turning to look at me pointedly.

"Yeah?"

"You need to seriously be careful. Don't expect this to always bail you out. And don't fight with Vegeta before I get a hold of you first. As a matter of fact, the least you could do for me for doing this for you is not fight with him at all tomorrow."

She's getting into her car. Instead of responding with a promise like she hoped I would, I waved at her.

I would love to let you look at my body tomorrow, Bulma. We'll spend plenty of time together. "Bye Bulma!"

* * *

_When I dream they always start with Piccolo. I think for a while he was trying to manipulate my dreams, but then I shut him out and started to have my own. He was my first teacher, after all. _

_I loved you first. At first it's just fractured images of us, throughout time. First I'm a child and then I'm an old man, and your strength is infinite at first, but eventually I defeat you. _

_Everything fades. _

_My father is training me. He's pushing me really hard. Suddenly I'm afraid for myself. In that instant I ceased to trust my father. I really thought I was going to die. And moreover, I was angry because there was fear in my own damned soft heart. And because I was angry I projected this onto my father in conjunction with what could now only be described as utter faithlessness. _

_For once I am indifferent to my father. His words garble in his mouth and soon he's so full of his own words that he explodes._

_He pops like a balloon in front of me. When I examine the pieces, they're plastic and fake. Easily fractured. The colors weren't even right. Like a cheesy live action version of a cartoon, where the colors are all over-exaggerated and unrealistic. _

_Vegeta's standing there with his arms crossed. He's the only one that's committed to picking up this mess. He needs it gone so that we can fight. When we fight he needs there to be room on the floor for my blood and knees. _

I shot up when the sunlight hit my eyelids. I had a little before I would need to collect myself and make the commute to school. Soon the sounds of a crying child would fill the house. I opted to leave.

Soon I was deep in the forest. I love how I could smell the morning. It was cold and damp still. The world was just waking up and getting ready.

He'd been approaching me for a while but he stopped right in front of me. Without hesitating he called out my name. "Gohan."

"Yeah?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. Almost a sneer.

With something like aggravation Piccolo hotly replied, "I see you've been spending _a lot of time _with Vegeta and his family."

"So you've been watching me, have you?" I practically snarl this at him. But I don't give him a chance to respond.

"I'm more powerful than you anyway," I scoffed.

"You are not the only one that has been training, boy!" He clinched his fist. "When Gokou was alive you would have never been so rude, or insolent."

I looked at him with a bit of a coy, crooked smile, "Don't worry, Piccolo. I've been just fine these days."

"I bet you can't even access half of the power you had when you fought Cell." He challenged.

I growled. "I'm driven by something far more powerful than a boy's wish to please his father."

"Are you, now, Gohan?" Piccolo asked, quirking a brow.

I stepped forward first. My fist moved at him. I went to easy on him, he dodged me. In an instant Piccolo threw off his weighted cape. His shoulders moved free and smooth now.

I grinned. "Loosening up so quickly?"

"Oh, I don't think it will take long at all to put you in your place, Gohan."

I wonder what Piccolo thought he was doing. I wonder if he really felt that somehow by defeating me in battle I could be reasoned with. But I could not. Even if he hadn't engaged in this losing battle, even if he had been able to win, I was Vegeta's.

I feel Vegeta's ki get close and then disappear. He's either watching us or staying near, just to keep tabs on me. Somehow I find this charming, somehow this is comforting to me, that he would concern himself with all that's about to transpire. But I think he knows full and well that any victory of mine is a victory of his, and on virtue of this he can gloat to Piccolo.

Piccolo looks off to the side, probably recognizing Vegeta as well. He knows how badly this can turn out. Still he powers up and comes at me. With ease do I duck under his fist and administer my own blow into his abdomen.

He steps back a little, gathering his breath. I stand, give him the chance to regain his composure. This only serves to annoy him. Again we're at each other, trading blows. I matched him very easily.

He was gradually putting more strength into his punches. I needed to start getting ready to go to class. I had to end it.

I prepared a ki blast for him. He watched me as I did it, making no attempt to prevent the blast. He didn't even block. I think he wanted to know how far I would go. I know I had to deliver. Vegeta was watching.

_**It's only when I'm committing an act of violence that I truly feel peace float over my body. **_

"_Gohan…"_

_People always call out your name, trailing off ever so slightly when they want to make me talk about my father. This is right after his death. "Gohan," Piccolo tries again, "I don't agree necessarily with Son's methods. But your father loved you very much and is very proud of you."_

_I nodded._

_He looked at me. Like he expected a little bit more, but I wouldn't respond with a word at all. I got into a fighting stance. _

_At first, Piccolo satisfied my need to fight. He battled with me until midnight for the first while after the death of my father. But then eventually Piccolo didn't want me to fight so much. By the time my thirteenth birthday hit I was alone.  
_

"_Gohan."_

_Again, people say my name a lot. I wonder what it means to them. _

"_Yeah?" I ask, gathering the scraps of my clothes. _

"_You've seemed… different lately." _

"_Different, Sir?" I ask, looking thoughtful, polite. He must sense the undertone soaked in sarcasm. _

_I am both frustrating him and challenging him and he knows it. I am now stronger than he is and starting to beat him in increasingly violent ways. Piccolo looks like he's ready to start over again. "Gohan, you're changing."_

"_You've suggested that often in different ways. I'm simply asking in what manner I have trained that it is so important it would distract you from coming at me with all of your strength." _

"_What would the point of that be, Gohan?" _

"_My father was a great warrior. I'm training to honor him and you're trying to hold me back."_

"_Gohan, for everyone's sake, I hope that's the truth." _

_I powered up and came at him once more. `_

_**And then my mind floats elsewhere…**_

This all makes me think about the first time I saw Vegeta.

"What a pity it is that Kakarotto has died." He said with a smart smirk on his face. I watched him a little. He was the only one that wasn't sad or giving me those looks. I will later come to wonder why it is that I love how merciless he was about my father at first.

"My father was a great man, unlike you, Vegeta!" I hissed, clinching my fist at him. Somehow it seemed like an automated response.

The air was filled with his laughter. "We'll see about that, Boy. The other thing, of course, that we'll have to see about is that now that Kakarotto is gone I, of course, am faced with the question of _what to do with his son._"

I stepped back a little, my eyes widening. Do you remember how afraid I was that day, that moment? Do you want to know why?

"So what? Will you train me? Teach me the true ways of the Saiya-Jins? Make me _like you?_ What makes you think any of that sounds appealing to me?"

Vegeta gave a knowing smirk, like I had answered my own question. He crossed his arms over his chest. "So what, you want to writhe in your own weakness and self-pity? You're a fool, just like your father."

I growled. Within an instant he was in my face, or his fist was. So caught off guard was I that I went flying backwards. This was probably the moment when I realized that there is something in Vegeta that no one else can give me, that is both horrifying and soothing, and that will always leave me indebted to him.

Sure, at the time I probably was more powerful than he was. But my power yielded to his will, in a way that Piccolo could not or did not want to command it.

In light of my very apparent abandonment issues, what else was I even expected to do?

In our fight, I sensed Vegeta's fury. I experienced it with him. So well did I identify with it. So desperately did I need to feel more of it.

A ki blast Vegeta sent at me burned the flesh on my cheek. My mother cried out in horror when she saw me.

Vegeta would suddenly start fighting harder, instant fury, "You're not fighting back, Boy!"

He made me find my strength again instead of trying to smother it away.

Soon he began to teach me other things:

"A Saiya-Jin acts with pride and honor."

"But Vegeta," I countered with a cocky little smile, "Wouldn't that only apply if there was still a planet to feel pride for?"

Vegeta's glance indicated clearly his disgust at my ignorance. To illustrate his point he shot a ki blast in the direction of a bush. The animal fell, dead. I watched as the blood trickled out slowly.

"Hey! Why did you go and do that! Some talk about pride an honor. It couldn't even defend itself, Vegeta!"

I gathered and gathered and gathered power but still when I lunged at Vegeta his strength overwhelmed me and I fell to the floor, near what was becoming a small puddle of blood on the floor.

The proximity was traumatizing in itself.

"First lesson kid, when you let yourself get too concerned about anything you get weak and make stupid mistakes. Never feel hesitant to expose those of your opponent and never feel sure that he will fail to expose yours. Play to win. Win by any means necessary."

"My father believed in mercy and compassion!"

"Mercy and compassion?" With a sick grin he looked at me dead in the eye, "Is that how you would describe your latest victory over the Namek?"

His eyes were pounding at me. Like he really understood, he really got the _urges _that I got that I suddenly felt so propelled into acknowledging.

I realized much later that the dead animal was a casualty in Vegeta's battle to get me. It was simply the first of a long string of warped and cruel lessons he would insist upon teaching me, his ultimate goal my complete and total desensitization.

Still from that moment on I listened to him with wide and eager eyes, despite myself, despite the things I said. And when he rejected me, I waited outside of the Gravity Chamber for hours at a time just so he would look at me. The more I spoke of my father, the harder he would fight until he would finally put me down.

Maybe I let him win the first few times. Just to feel loss. To enable the body to feel pain because the soul could no longer handle it and was turned off by the mind.

And when he finally let me inside, to train with him, he laughs and said I should have known better.

Call it a compulsion. Even at that point something about him was magnetic. I would follow him with morbid interest until I would worship him with the most obstinate sort of love. Maybe in the end I loved that having faith in my father was the one thing I was urged to not do. Maybe it was because Vegeta's goals were clearly cut out to eradicate him from me entirely that they were appealing.

I was exhausted by my loss. Tormented by it. Ready to be rid of it, once and for all, like it was a nuisance hanging above my head. My father was no longer my halo, he was my burden to bear like the weight on Piccolo's shoulders or Trunks in Bulma's arms. Vegeta did this for me.

* * *

-CL


	3. Aren't You the One?

**Aren't You the One? **

(In the business of remembrance and forget.)

I'm standing faithfully and endlessly at your side on the battlefield. The wind blows just a little bit and for a split second I remember the time when we went fishing for my "birthday" and it was like nature sang for you. Then the grit of the battlefield jolts me back to reality and I focus once more.

Everyone stands around sweating, sizing everyone else up. Everyone's muscles are swelling in the blistering heat. Everyone's biting their lips, sweating it out, narrowing their eyes.

This is how our fights will always start. This is the essence of those mornings spent on the battlefield; we all stand solemnly in mourning and anticipation. "That's just awful," you think and tsk a little bit. But you don't know; you've never been there.

The impact of the blasts overwhelmed them.

My father eventually wills me to take my place in the ring. He says I can do it, that I am his shooting star. He says that I am all-powerful, moreso than he, and something about how I can defeat him when he himself cannot.

I don't believe this entirely and I am afraid out of my fucking mind. But my father sent me into battle and I guess he knew what was best. Parents only look after their children, they only love them. I was no one's sacrificial lamb that day. This was not my coming-of-age story, having Cell taunt me until I let go.

I realized that I had to use my full strength on him in order to defeat him. I would have to push my limits in order to use my full strength. If I defeated him in battle, he would not survive. He would use every bit of his life energy to attack me.

I'm rising to the every occasion. Don't you get it? Don't you understand how badly I want to pleasure you?

**Thoughts inside of the Gravity Chamber:**

Not that you believe me, but I do not appreciate so constantly being mind fucked. I do not enjoy feeling so consumed by you and yet so avoided. I have never felt so alone, I have never failed so well.

I used to be good at everything I did, I bitterly thought. Now it's all I can do just to release these thoughts that bombard me, that haunt me. Nothing leaves me alone. Without your sunlight there is no peace inside of my skull. Your warmth, your presence, and its soothing effect, the effigy of the combined power of all of these things is lingering about inside of my head and I _do not like it_.

I'm thinking about my father again. Vegeta's learned a new trick. He can make binding rings out of his already extraordinary energy. I'm sealed against the wall of the Gravity Chamber, struggling against Vegeta's furious energy, watching him as he grins in front of me.

_Why, whatever are you going to do to me now? _

* * *

My eyes shoot open. Goten is giggling outside of my door. Even though mother tries to keep him away from me, he insists on playing pranks.

I see he is about as creative as a rock. The door to my bedroom has obviously been rigged to have a bucket of (undoubtedly cold) water from the river. With a bit of an annoyed sigh, I simply lifted the bucket and tugged the rope.

Of course, I wasn't looking when I opened the bathroom door. A water balloon flies my way and soaks my face and shirt. I am seething in great annoyance; I don't even notice the cold water.

"Big brother!" He says cheerfully, as though he'd just accomplished something great.

One of us is going to die if we keep living together.

**Thoughts When Commuting:**

Not that you hear me, but I miss you so god damned much I'm going absolutely fucking insane. Do you know what I did to myself today? Why would you care, why should you? Nevermind. I retract my previous statements.

Just leave me alone. Get out of my fucking head.

* * *

"Okay, Gohan, today you're going to have to catch me." You say this with a bit of a grin on your face. I look at you in anticipation, almost lick my lips. My eyes are these little black fucking marbles all shiny and clean with earnest devotion. Suddenly I'm watching myself from afar, unable to do anything but watch myself react to you.

You turn into a Super Saiya-Jin. You're wearing Vegeta's armor this time, and you look _fucking delicious. _Your smile never stops though, like you miss the irony of it all, like I won't forever have this image of you stuck in my head.

"Anything goes!" Your voice rings out into the nothingness of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. As a Super Saiya-Jin, I strive to follow you. My eyes narrow. Oh, the games we used to play with each other, Father!

"Good reading! Still, you're too soft."

Again he phases out of my vision. He's so incredibly fast, my father. I hardly know what to do with myself. And yet he goads me on, as if willing me to see his challenge through.

"That was close, too close!" He says with a bit of a laugh. I love what a funny man he could be. Stepping away from my energy blasts clumsily, acting like he couldn't take it just for the laughs. My father was a man that understood humor in a way that I would never see again. An adult man, he seemed innocent. Even with infinite power, he remained pure.

_Why can't I remain pure, too? _

He would roll over and dodge all of my blasts.

"Father!" I lowered myself onto his shoulder.

"You did good, huh Gohan?"

"Yeah!" I said. We both cheered at my victory. The moment is speeding up.

My father's laughter fills the air.

"Kinda overdid it though, huh?"

You're floating away from me, and my eyes are focused on every single muscle in your skin-tight bodysuit. You're a little hypnotic like this, Dad, I've got to say.

There I go again, thinking about you when you don't give a damn about me.

**My Thoughts Lying in Bed at Night because I had that nightmare (again): **

You know, Dad, it's not like I really want to be so angry all the time. But somehow the anger just gushes out of all of the other emotions; ironically it has become the most easily recognizable and the only one that I truly respond to any more these days.

It's like the beating of your heart, back when you had one, back when it still beat. Were those times distinct or the same?

What am I supposed to do now?

* * *

Someone's calling me. My eyes open. An hour has passed since I managed to fall asleep again. The clock's glowing daggers at me in the darkness at its silence that has been disrupted by the sound of my cell phone vibrating. I fish it out of my jeans. The floor is cold and smooth.

"Bulma, hey." My voice is groggy and yet I'm striving to make it sound deep and smooth and cool.

"Gohan," She sounds a little nervous, "I didn't know if you would be up or not."

I smile into the speaker, "You know I stay up late studying." She laps at my lie like a cat takes to warm milk.

"Yes, of course," She says, "I know how hard you study, Gohan. Well, how about a break?"

"Oh, I don't know, Bulma…" I drag her name out with something like a smirk on the other end of the telephone, "I've got a lot more to do and I don't want to wake my mom and the baby up."

I hear Bulma debating whether to back off or not. But I also know that she's calling me because _she _can't sleep. This is more for her than it is for me. Or maybe we both need it. This is one of the many things that I cannot well distinguish these days. "Well, fine. But if you change your mind-"

"How about in twenty minutes, Bulma? Let's go get ice cream."

"What place is open at this time of night?"

"I'll fly you anywhere for some ice cream, Bulma."

In an uncertain voice she asks where I want to meet up.

**Thoughts from the Gravity Chamber: **

Vegeta is cruel and warm and menacing and loving all at once. Okay, so he's not really all that loving. But he inspires something in me that's awfully similar to love, it sits right next to love. It's snuggled between love and something else. It knows love very well; it even strives to emulate it but acknowledges and inevitably accepts the difference between whatever it is and the feeling of love. It's just the namelessness of the sensation that bothers me, and the fact that it's so close to love but it's not quite there. This is what is so confusing. He is the true malevolent God. Murderous villainy aside, when Vegeta strolls over me, calling me weak and helpless, I go crazy.

You give me so little to live off of and yet see! See how far I can stretch it all out.

* * *

"Gohan! You're overdoing it." I hear Bulma's demanding voice float through the air to my ears and then I flinch immediately at the shrillness with which she speaks. She's annoyed with me, over something.

It's hard to not stare with your mouth half open and kind of drag on an, "Uhhh…" sort of sound when you look at Bulma Briefs and she's mad at you for _something. _Because the first thing you notice is the perfect way her breasts squeeze into her tube-tops, the cigarette in hand, her shorts and long legs. She always wore almost nothing in the summer. It was hot in her lab, she complained. Her lab coat was perpetually tossed aside carelessly during the warmer months. Her flesh always seemed so sticky and damp and sweet.

"Did you hear me?" She asks, resting her hands on her hips and narrowing her blue eyes at me. Of course I flushed, and she only thought it was because of the shrillness of her voice.

"Bulma, I'm always happy to see you, but maybe you should tell me why you're so upset with me." I try to disarm her just a little with my smile (or maybe I borrowed it from my father after I figured out how effective that attack of his was on all beings of the female variety), holding my hands up in surrender to her greater will. I mean you no harm, I don't want you angry. This is how I look at Bulma Briefs.

"Your mother isn't here, is she?" Bulma asks, looking around.

"No, she's taken Goten to the doctor in the city, and the two will be out for the day." I'm leaning against the door frame, kind of watching her shout at me on the porch of my house. One of my hands is on the door, holding it half open, half closed. We're sort of lingering there.

Her big blue eyes have set themselves back on my face, and they are round and even sort of innocent when they ask, "And you didn't go with them?" Like in the naïvest sense of it all, I would possibly consider going on a family trip sans my father plus my kid brother for a whole day in the loud, bustling city.

"Why would I?" I asked, a little too harshly I guess. She didn't quite flinch at my words, but describing her as looking uncomfortable definitely was fair to say. I pushed the door open with my hand, cocking my head inside. "Won't you come in, Bulma?"

She looks back at her airplane. "Trunks is waiting for me at home. I can't stay too long, Gohan."

"Of course." I say, a little disappointed. "So what was on your mind, then?"

"Gohan, really I think that you need to understand that what you're getting into, with Vegeta-"

"Gohan, it's _dangerous." _Bulma looks uncomfortable. She's cupping her hair behind her ear. "Vegeta is dangerous. I know that he's more powerful than ever and more motivated to be the best now that Goku is gone than I've ever seen him before. He's gone mad with arrogance."

"Bulma, is Vegeta…" I didn't know how to finish the question. Something like "mistreating you" or "hurting you." But I didn't have to finish the question, luckily.

She's shaking her head emphatically, "I just don't want to see _you _get hurt. Don't worry about me, Gohan. I can handle myself when it comes to Vegeta." She puts her hands on her hips

**My image of Vegeta watching young Trunks:**

"_Boy!" He barks. _

"_Sir!" Trunks salutes his father, almost, and he is something between excited to spend the time together and sarcastic. Vegeta resists the urge to respond directly to the sign of disrespect._

_He crosses his arms over his chest instead with a bit of a smirk, "So your worthless mother has abandoned you to go see the elder son of Kakarot undoubtedly. You have been entrusted in my care for the afternoon, luckily, and shall be appropriately punished for the inconvenience." _

"_Of my existence?" Trunks asks, blinking a little. He smirks at his attitude, pleased with himself. _

_With the flick of a button, the Gravity Chamber turns on and begins to power up to whatever level Vegeta has decided his son can take. This in reality is probably something like "the pain is only slightly unbearable." _

_Young Trunks powers up to a Super Saiya-Jin immediately because he's cocky and he doesn't think to save his energy. Without breaking a sweat he begins to launch an attack on his father, who may seem just a little bit proud at the audacity of his son. _

"_You are spoiled," Vegeta says, "You are weak." Vegeta lands a particularly devastating slap on his son's cheek. Trunks falls to the other side of the chamber, temporarily unable to get up. Vegeta strolls over to him. His hands are on his hips. He hasn't even broken a sweat. His teal eyes set themselves on Trunks' wide blue orbs, "Like her," Vegeta hisses, "your mother." _

_Trunks grits his teeth and clinches his fist. "Don't you talk about her like that! It's not like you want to have anything to do with me anyway!"_

"_I don't see the sense in defending her. Having such a foolish woman as a mother could only have possibly meant that there was a distinct chance that you would not have survived infancy. But you did, good job, boy, heh." Vegeta's smirk enrages his son._

_Again, you see a little super Saiya-Jin charging at his father._

**A very long time ago: **

"Bulma, that guy's gonna get what's coming to him." I'm crossing my arms over my chest, barely keeping my anger in check. "He keeps talking about my dad like that!"

I am thirteen years old when I say this. My brother is just a baby.

I can feel Vegeta's indifference to his son, he reminds me of an old warrior. Saiya-Jin children were likely something like an annoyance, a distraction, and a burden their first year of life. Then again, this is how Vegeta treats mostly everyone anyway. Maybe there was no need for him to try to get close to Trunks in the earlier years. After all, you can only train them after they learn to walk. That gave him a year of not caring about his son. With a whole year of my prince thinking of his own first son in terms of liability and affliction, and Bulma along with it, I could have been in Heaven.

Trunks, the little prince himself, is currently napping in his mother's bed. He is a toddler, still adorable, and Bulma checks him every so often. "Gohan," Bulma says, not quite meeting my gaze, "You need to stay away from Vegeta. I don't think he'll hurt me," She puts her hands on her desk, "but you I'm not so sure about. He seems kind of obsessed with you these days, Gohan. Now that your dad's dead. Like he's going to carry out his rivalry with your dad forever using you."

Bulma's such a smart lady that even _she _doesn't realize the gravity of the things she says sometimes. This is, upon retrospect, one of her thousands of charms.

"Bulma, he can't get away with the stuff he's been doing. If that means that I have to fight him, then that's what it's going to come down to."

"I don't want you in the middle of this, Gohan."

"In the middle of what?" I almost hiss, still trying to force Bulma to look at me. At this point the only thing I'm thinking about Bulma is the fact that she knows something about Vegeta (who has, incidentally, at this point become my biggest obsession and greatest foe as well, so the feeling was rather mutual, ha ha). I'm not thinking about her luscious breasts or the fact that she's really the most beautiful and unique, and _honest _people I've ever met in my life. Bulma's human, she's flawed, she's alright with that, and she's not hiding from me. She's hiding from a lot of things and a lot of people, like motherhood and family and Vegeta, but she's not hiding from me. I digress.

"Look, I love Vegeta, okay?" She says, touching her hand to her chest, "But that doesn't mean I've turned a blind eye to his bad qualities. One of them very apparently being a distinct disdain for your now dead father, Gohan. _That's_ what I don't want you to get caught up in."

"But you said that Vegeta was obsessed with _me._"

"Because when he sees you he sees a way to defeat your father. Gohan, I know that you were more powerful than Vegeta when you fought Cell but you don't know what he's capable of since he's come back. It's been a whole year, Gohan."

I scoffed, crossing my arms over my chest, "I'll train with Piccolo more, then."

Bulma looks at me with big, wide eyes. "You're doing the same thing, aren't you?" Her voice is suddenly alarmed.

"Wha?"

"You're doing the same damn thing." And now it is dangerous. I've taken to loving it when Bulma curses. There's something about the way swears roll off her lips that is both horrifying and invigorating. Vegeta calls her vulgar. Maybe. Perhaps.

"Now, Bulma, wait just a moment-" I raise my hands in surrender to her.

She's pointing her finger at me in the most accusatory way she can. She is both stern and tight. "You're just trying to relive your father's life with Vegeta, aren't you?"

**From the Gravity Chamber, Again: **

And here he is, standing before you, your unlikely hero, Son Gohan.

Loving crowd, you are too kind. I destroyed Cell, you know. No need for applause. Just look behind the velvet red curtain, see who you find.

There he is, self-medicating every chance he gets behind his mother's back.

_Please hurt me, just a little bit. I need you to hurt me, or else I won't pay attention. _This is the look that I'm giving Vegeta right now. He is more than willing to oblige me.

**My thoughts (when I was young): A Monologue Regarding Abandonment **

Otherwise known as, it all started to change when I started thinking these thoughts…

How do I live after telling myself that I will never see you again?

Everyone else is over this but me. And yet I sit around and think about being sedate for the rest of my life in mourning. You should be grateful I'm not. I've found something worthwhile, afterall.

It's not very practical, but I've found something that fits. He pushes all the right buttons.

When dad died, it was like being told that God didn't exist. Or something. I know that's silly, my dad's in heaven right now training with a King in the sky. It's really kind of fantastic and soothing, knowing what happens to you when you die.

See? It's not so bad after all, Dad. See? See me smile. See me watch mom cry every night? See me watch her fall asleep with an infant identical to you in her arms, knowing that my mom's gone off somewhere and is just trying to recreate you and there's nothing you or I can do about it?

Some people think I'm a little disturbed. That I'm losing it just a little bit. You want to talk about someone that needs help? Go look at my _**mother**_. See what he did to my mom!

Doesn't anybody care? Doesn't anybody care at all?

**To this Vegeta would later whisper, finally, bluntly, "No." **

* * *

"Incessant nag!" Vegeta hissed back, eyes narrowed. "Just do as I tell you to!"

"Vegeta, I am working on a project for _Gohan. _You're going to have to wait. You're second in line right now, so just be grateful for that and leave me alone!" She's actually kind of raging angry at him, red in the face and all huffy. I'd think it was adorable if I knew which of the two to be more jealous of. The Bulma/Vegeta dynamic is assuredly a complicated and passionate one, too bad I'm thrust in the middle of it. Wait until you see them fighting over Trunks.

I sort of cough when she says that, mostly at the way that my name sounds in her voice. Partially because everything inside of me tingles when she says that, and partially because of the murderous look that Vegeta gives me.

"Oh, Gohan! Here you are." She smiles and takes my arm. "I've been waiting for you."

"Really, it's no rush, Bulma-" But she's already walking me away from Vegeta, wriggling her hips a little bit and he watches her with a stern face. She's not actually that much younger than Vegeta is, even accounting for the time spent in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and yet something about Vegeta seems stern, disciplined, and contained while something about Bulma seems wild, flamboyant, and just a little bit insane.

One of the charms, one of the charms.

"Nonsense!" Bulma beams at me. "I told you we'd do it today and we will. Besides, I've got everything all set up." Bulma puts a hand on her hip and gives Vegeta a little cocky laugh, "And _others _will just have to wait until I am ready."

* * *

There are a few reasons why I don't like or trust Trunks. I remember a thing or two, during our fights with Cell.

_Trunks, from the future, said, "Hey! This is our chance. If Goku eats a Senzu bean, he can get his strength back and take Cell down."_

_Yamucha agrees. Trunks looks to Krillin. _

_Piccolo shakes his head, stern and insistent. "We will wait." _

"_We'll wait for what? He needs the Senzu bean!" Trunks is demanding. I guess you don't see anything wrong with his behavior thus far. I will enlighten you soon enough, do not fret. _

"_Quiet boy!" The sound of Vegeta's voice fills the air. "Where is your honor?" He is chastising him, "Like all pureblooded Saiya-Jins, Kakarot would rather die fighting than win with one of those disgraceful Senzu beans as his crutch." _

_Vegeta understands a thing or two, it seems. He crosses his arms over his chest with finality. "Kakarot trained in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber just as we did. Now let's see what he can do." _

_I am jealous, in retrospect, over the very idea that Trunks and Vegeta got to spend so much quality time in the chamber together. I long for a training period this grueling with Vegeta. My heart beats like a hammer in my chest when I consider it, I lick away the sweat from my upper lip at the thought of it. Salty yet pleasant. Fuck me where I lay._

_I digress._

_Trunks, at this point, is now kind of pouting. He's adamant that we "help" my father. "No, we can't!" He's shouting, defying Vegeta as he always seems to do, "Goku doesn't have the strength. Don't you see what will happen if he keeps going like this?" _

"_If this goes on," Vegeta responds, "then he will die. But that is his decision. It is painfully clear at this point that no one among us is stronger than Kakarot is." This is where Vegeta is wrong, but we won't worry about that yet. This story is to demonstrate Trunks' failures, not one of Vegeta's few lapses in judgment. Although it is interesting to consider how his power has grown since the experience, probably as a result of it. Cell changed Vegeta just the way he did me. "Not even… myself. So he deserves the fight of a true warrior. And that means," Vegeta says solemnly, "to the death." _

_His words are moving, and at the time they were almost romantic. There is nothing romantic about my father's death. It was a fluke and a joke all wrapped up in one big fucking Son trademark smiles. _

"_While we all just stand here and watch?" Trunks is challenging Vegeta again. "I won't be a part of it!" _

"_Aren't you the one," Vegeta hisses, breathing fire and I can sense the jealousy in his voice in this instance, "who has never stopped talking about how great a hero Kakarot is? If you have so much faith in him, then wait, and let us see what he can do." _

Vegeta's word is final. I don't trust Trunks because I knew, in that very instant, that Trunks is quite possibly the only thing that Vegeta has the capacity to truly care about (love?). Vegeta was jealous that day, of how Trunks idolized my father, and he seized an opportunity to condescend him because of it. And I know that because of Bulma, Trunks is destined to grow up thinking about my father as some glorified hero. And every day the vision comes true a little bit more clearly, and the image of young Trunks becomes sharper for me.

I had a pretty good thing going here, and Trunks could ruin it all just like Goten ruined it all and I'm not sure how I'm going to stop it.

But I will.

* * *

-**CL **


	4. And If, by chance, I Let You Live

**And if, By chance I Let You Live **

(I am a Saiya-Jin)

"_Remember forever, that's how we stay close."_

I guess I should be happy to know that he came back for me. Not for Trunks, or even Bulma. Vegeta returned to fight me. Make yourself sure of this. Vegeta came back for me.

Consider: Vegeta thinks everyone is useless, and finds me to be, in a word, worthy of his attentions and efforts. Really, the entire incident the first night he got back was just a huge show, an elaboration on all of the things that we could do together because we _understand _each other, because we are Saiya-Jin warriors and no one else can comprehend the weight of the blood that runs in our veins. It pulsates for battle and conquest and blood.

After Dad died, Vegeta took off because there was "nothing left" for him on Earth, or, as he put it, "this damnable mud-ball." Bulma cried a lot and was mostly only seen with Trunks for a long time. She lost weight and got pale. I felt for her, but I had my own problems (like not killing Piccolo on accident when we spar). The battlefield had become a drug, and intoxicated would I lose myself and in my mania I could not control my strength, or my desire to defeat my opponent completely and absolutely. It was not a win I was looking for, it was a consuming desire to _conquer. _Such was my condition prior to Vegeta's sauntering into my life. I feel like he knew.

When Vegeta returned, I knew it was for me. This is mostly because he said so.

"So the day has come, aren't you just so _excited_?" His voice is raspy and his teeth are shining against the cold evening wind. Vegeta lands in front of me. I can only see his form and the glitter of his eyes. "I have returned to assess how weak you are. You should consider yourself lucky. You're a Saiya-Jin, kid. You may just be useful to me."

I growl at this, because at the time I believe that I am no one's pawn. He launches his knee into my gut. It's quicker than lightening and I didn't even notice what happened. He laughs and it is loud and it rings in my ears as I strive to catch my breath.

"Why, you've barely improved at all, boy! Aren't you the one that was supposed to have beaten Cell? Gone weak without your doting father, have you?" His teeth were shiny in the darkness.

I growled, of course, not knowing what I was getting into. "That's a cheap shot, even for you, Vegeta!" I truly believed at that time that Vegeta's goals and my own were so different we would hate each other and be enemies forever.

I lost the fight that night.

I was stronger than him, I know it, or at least I believed it at the time, but he made me so angry as he cursed my father's name deep into the darkness I attacked him head on without thinking and it didn't take that much for him to over-power me over and over and over again.

Vegeta ceased to be just one person and became something of an entity that evening. He was fragmented, to be sure: raspy voice, deep laugh, a fist, an energy blast, a smirk. "Come now, you can do better than this! Surely Kakarot taught you better than this!"

Piccolo had long stopped mentioning my father, at least during our fights. Vegeta missed the memo, and blinded by my rage did I manage to get the upper end.

"That's more like it," he sort of breathed at me, and his eyes were glittering, and he licked the blood away from his lip as he watched me. In that instant, he was absorbed in me, and I felt weightless.

Still, when he came back at me, I felt unprepared or at least taken aback by the sensation of battle. It was as if I'd never fought before and he was christening me with my own blood, prepared to begin molding me in his own image.

Years later I would come to wonder exactly how much of this Vegeta had planned. I would obsess in the dark at night the way that he would catch my attacks or fly back when I managed to connect an attack. It's vaguely similar to our time in the Gravity Chamber.

With each attack I was getting more reckless and I could practically hear my father's voice raging inside of my skull, telling me to calm down or to focus, assuring me calmly that I could take control of the fight and win easily. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard my dad say something like, '_You don't have to lose this, you're just choosing to.'_ But I couldn't defeat Vegeta, and the voice inside of my head was wrong.

"It seems _he's failed you_, Gohan." Vegeta says, cocky smirk plastered on his face. He's taunting me with that voice of his, and I'm shaking in rage, sort of trying to cough up words to cut him off, but he's so just proud of himself that I can't stop it. "He's turned you into a weak warrior unable to channel your own power. You weren't even fighting back _intelligently _and your awful acquaintances and relatives are forever prattling on about your brainpower. Where was it?" He sneered, kicking my limp body into what looked like a tree. I passed through it. "Where is your _skill_, boy?"

I can only hear his voice as I turn, opting to just leave as he is yelling after me in the most amused tone, "You didn't fight smart, you didn't even fight _well! _Are you not a warrior? Did Kakarot invest so much time in saving the world that he forgot to teach his son how to _not _be a weakling?"

Someone's crying out in rage and frustration and I'm pretty sure it was me.

Vegeta's blood sort of floats in the air, the little droplets sort of dance around each other as if excited to be released, and I wonder if blood thinks that flesh is a prison or a shield. I don't stop there, because I can't stop, and when I lock my hands together and send Vegeta's body flying to the ground such that it forms a crater on the Earth, I don't think twice before rushing t the ground to resume the battle.

His arm has been broken and it's dangling and limp and unnatural. I get so caught up in just looking at him that he attacks me instead of the other way around.

The kick to my face is swift and jaw-crushing. I fell back against or into something. I'm breathing hard, trying to get out, but he's pointing two fingers at me with a sick grin on his face.

I'm bound against something rough and hard. My restraints are golden and they cut just slightly into my flesh.

He strolls towards me casually, "Have I shown you my new attack?" He's scoffing at me again, sneering down at me, and I can only sense his presence for the moment because my eyes are nearly sealed shut. "Well, if you ever need someone to _really _teach you how to be a warrior, I may just consider it, kid, if you ask me nice enough." He stands tall and victorious over me when we are finally done. He leaves with a laugh. I have never been someone's joke like this, except for maybe my father's.

By "we are finally done" I mean I am in a pile of rocks (it used to be a mountain), unable to stand for the moment. My mother will screech when she sees me because of my broken arm limply swinging one way and the next with no regard for the rest of my body. She will cover her mouth with her hand at the rags that are soaked with my blood and his.

My heart is still pumping. I hadn't lost in _so long._

In the glaring darkness, I examine the little cuts on both of my wrists from Vegeta's energy bonds. I'm breathing hard and I think even then I knew what I had to do. I didn't hear my dad's voice at all.

**Alice in Wonderland, or the Lack thereof  
**(Life Post-Vegeta's proposition)

Vegeta _does _things to me. For some reason I always find myself doing whatever it is he wants, one way or the other. Even in the beginning when I would shout and curse at him and tell him he is wrong and awful, I would end up doing what he wanted. I would follow him.

Follow the rabbit, type thing. You know, the white rabbit stood for Lewis Carroll's father. I get all amused sometimes, at how often I see people doing the exact same thing. Trying to be their father, or follow in his footsteps, or even find him. I wanted to be just like my father the longest time ago, I wanted to repeat every step of his life just to have a fraction of his goodness or his coolness or his power.

I wanted to be Mr. Nice Guy, the humble one you look to in your hour of darkness. I wanted to have the gift of taming the darkness in the hearts of others, to have furious strength and all the knowledge in the world as to how to access and use it.

Lose my faith, lose my mind, lose track of time, lose my father, and finally lose my temper.

In later years I will come to think of Vegeta as sort of delivering me from the way I used to be, and the thoughts I used to think, and the nightmares that came as a result. He replaced everything from the inside out, and I am indebted to him.

I just want a place to fall into that's nice and chilly and full of gore. I want that dream world, the place I can escape to and indulge in everything sick I've ever wanted, and to never have to emerge from it.

Give me my bloodbath, give me some bones cracking, and give me something I can really sink my teeth into.

It took a while of obsessively believing Vegeta to be my greatest foe and worst antagonist before I found myself in West City, looking for Capsule Corporations. I was determined and yet misguided. I had no clue what to expect or to do, or even what I wanted.

I waited outside of the Gravity Chamber while he purposefully locked himself inside for three days. He took no meals. I took no meals. Bulma had a heart attack. He trained. I trained outside, dutifully, waiting for him to emerge. So good is he, he already began to force me to revere him!

It's kind of scary and mostly disgusting, when you really think about it. I got really thin really fast, but Vegeta didn't care. If he could handle the fatigue then so could I, I'm sure this was the thought process behind all of that. All I could think of, truly, was how furious I was with Piccolo for _abandoning_ me and how much I needed Vegeta in order to finally start training properly again.

He was right, I'd lost the battle and I hadn't put up a very good fight at all. Still, Vegeta gave me a sense of… pride. Vegeta gave me defeat and then told me I was a warrior, worth more than the life that I'd been given. Encouragement wins out in the end. To date Vegeta has only brought good things into my life.

Sunset of the third day, Vegeta exited the Gravity Chamber and he didn't give me a glance. He walked right past me. I stayed outside, waiting for him to return to speak to me. While he was eating and showering Bulma came out, insisting that I take advantage of his resting and imploring me to eat and rest myself.

"_Gohan, you're going to take care of yourself!" _

Vaguely I remember the night she accused me of living vicariously through my father's memory and reenacting history with Vegeta. I remember how indignant and even furious I was at her words. So what if we want to do this forever, me pretending that I'm the hero and him pretending that by torturing me he's getting at his greatest rival? Really, Vegeta was operating under the assumption that my father cared about anything I did.

The things he said about my father made my blood boil! He struck at every place in my heart where there was nothing but undying loyalty to my father, and admiration, and even soft longing. What changed? Me. I changed. I needed a good fight, and I couldn't get that with Bulma yelling in my face or offering me food and shelter. Bulma insists that because Vegeta rests, so can I.

I'm glad I didn't.

When Vegeta finally returned, I only had a minute to slip into the Gravity Chamber behind him. I could _feel _his smile as he powered up the machine and was ready to begin sparring with me. "What is it you've come here for, spawn of Kakarot?"

I looked down. "This changes nothing between us, Vegeta! I just think we should start sparring together." I say.

"I will be your master and you will believe in me entirely." Vegeta says, crossing his arms over his chest decidedly. "No complaints of your mother's nagging and no distractions. Enter this chamber as my student and you will be walking into a Hell of our creation."

"I know that!" I snap at him. He sharply turns around to look at me. I'm starting to sweat, it's hot in the Gravity Chamber and I've never had to stand under this level of pressure. His teeth begin shining in the synthetic light. He knows it is only a matter of time now before I am considering the great possibility of my weakness, and how much I need to not be weak. How badly I need to be strong, and how strong I think he is.

The strength that he exhibits, it is a horror show taunting me and tantalizing me at every step of this journey.

**Symbolic transfer of power:**

(My heart is not able, I am not stable, Get Me Out of Here, Now)

"Going somewhere?" I'm trying to wrestle my way out of the bonds but they're just cutting into my flesh. It hurts the sensitive parts of my skin, but I am lucky because I am very close to being numb and then I won't care anymore.

He's using his energy bond attack again on me. My hands are bound together and he's ready to lash out onto my body.

Sex with Vegeta is one psychological game after the next. I'm afraid of Vegeta. I'm afraid of the world. I'm afraid of myself; sometimes I'm even afraid _for myself. _I'm more afraid of what my father would think of what I've been doing while he was out and away. I'm afraid of what's going to happen when I have to own up to all of my sins. I hope I never see my father again.

He just kind of likes to watch me struggle in the ki-binds until finally I power up enough to break them. I launch an attack on him, and as he spits out blood he avoids one attack but takes the full weight of my fist.

He falls back and is on the floor. In an instant I'm on top of him, and at first I'm beating my fists into him entirely, but I can't help it and soon my lips are on him, wild, like I'm a boy in heat. I get a good second or so of tasting his saliva and blood mixed together with mine before he pushes me off and the fight begins again.

No one can help this; no one can stop this, Hell of our own creation. Let's do every awful thing we can thing up of until we drop.

I crack my neck and smile at him, breathing hard and heavy. He's panting as well, watching me. His gloves come of, as they're mostly just rags at this point. It's all happening so quickly. He attacks me, I barely avoid them. I attack him and he dodges them. Someone makes a hit, it doesn't even matter who, we fly away from each other and come again.

Our fists simultaneously connect on each other's cheek. Something's surely been dislocated, but this is not my concern at the moment. My concern is getting Vegeta back face-down on the floor, muscles twitching as I'm fucking the shit out of him. You've got to give Vegeta some credit. He hates bottoming, and I can only think tenderly that he only lets me because I give him no other choice. Piccolo I loved, truly, but as a father or a friend. Vegeta I want to devour, and he wants to devour me.

"Oh, shit!" I'm panting and curling my fists into balls and then relaxing them and clinching them again and grinding my teeth while my mind struggles to keep up with the action my body has given up and given in to instinct and desire.

In the pit of my abdomen, and nipping at my toes, I feel a floating sensation.

It is so fascinating how we desire to possess one another- we are constantly fighting to be the one on top, to be best, to be in power. Is it odd of me to say that my expectation is that at the end of the day he still controls me? I don't think it would be half the fun if he didn't at some point tame me in the most physically torturous and painful way possible.

There's a good chance I'd try to kill him like Goten and like Piccolo if Vegeta were to go easy on me. Fighting with Vegeta does not always end in fucking Vegeta, or (more likely) his fucking me, but when it does it is violent and gritty and I would give up anything in the world for more of it. If the battlefield is a drug to me, then this is assuredly my own little piece of heaven.

I hear myself laugh out loud at this idea.

Somehow, in the middle of this, between Vegeta's thrusting and my musings both charming and abhorrent on life, I find that the only thing I want is to ensure that he's going to stay. Isn't that pathetic?

**An Attempt at Regaining some Shred of Normalcy: **

I overslept this morning. I overslept this morning and when I woke up and looked at the clock instead of dread and panic washing over my senses I felt a bizarre, resigned calm. I needed to take a shower this morning but instead I just threw on some clothes, I needed to have an assignment to turn in but instead I just shoved my books in my bag and made my way out into the brightening world.

I counted every pace, patiently, not swearing to myself or panicking like I possibly should have been. I didn't really react at all. Two cars zoomed by obnoxiously; aside from this the sky was quiet.

When I finally made it to class, I took my seat. It's always so awkward when you come in late. I looked out the window. Something was so surreal and yet so normal about today. Quiet. That's the word I was looking for. I woke up in silence and in a mess and in silence I gathered my things and began my day, completely ignoring the chaos around me.

When I looked out the window, I decided to get over your death. You weren't around to miss me anymore, so I guess it doesn't make much of a point to sit around missing you all that much. I'm the only one in the whole world not over it yet, and somehow that seems more unfair to me than it was to you or anyone else. I think your name every day, every hour, and I see your face in my dreams but I doubt very much that that's the case for you. It was after all, your choice to leave. Leave me. Leave us. Really, it's the same difference in the end, right? I didn't even feel alone, sitting there considering you or the lack thereof. I just stared silently out the window at absolutely nothing until the professor released us and I decided on it, finally and surely, that I couldn't miss you anymore.

I was so late for class today I missed most of it all together. It rained so hard that the streets were flooding yesterday, but just like every other one of the storms around here it ended, relatively quickly, and the sun came out. Still the air was humid and cool, and the plants were damp, and I felt an awkward sullenness come about me as I gathered myself up the stairs. I was kind of at a loss as to what to do, now that I'd been dismissed from class and had a good hour before my next one. Part of me lamented my choice to get out of bed in the first place. I yawned a little to myself. Since when had I started to dread my days like this? Since when had I started to drag my nights out slow and unproductive, just to wake up rushed and frazzled the next morning, thinking of all the things I should have done and all the ways I can put off everything else that I need to do.

Mom's real disappointed that I'm not more family-oriented. Every time I come home it feels like a visit, and she is quiet, sad but sure, and I can only imagine how badly she wishes Father would return. She would be appalled to see my inside of the clutter of my mind.

I've adjusted to normal human life pretty well, though, I think. It's occurred to me before that my childhood wasn't all that normal, but given everything it was kind of expected that assimilation was going to be a problem. I even have a job. I mostly despise the people I work with, and I hate the work I do. It's just a sales job, really. I sit on the phones for hours until my legs start to cramp and when someone picks up their phone I'm to ask them for money, four times, to donate to Hercule Satan's fund for _whatever. _

I yawn again and it occurs to me that I need coffee, or soda. Caffeine, whatever. Since when did I need energy? The worst days are when I have to stay on campus all day and then go straight to work. I'm starving and sleepy and I barely know what to do with myself. But like they can't see me fly to school, they can't see me eat. I'm undercover and forever trying to hide my identity, the person that I really am or that I really am not, or the man that's hiding under my skin laughing with that wide goofy grin and wild hair.

Class was so pleasant, as usual. I got snapped at for dozing, I found out I missed a quiz, and the homework assignment I didn't do (that I was supposed to do this morning, when I was asleep thinking about you) was taken up. Sometimes coping means not caring about anything that's going out, just drowning it all out until you can think straight again. Sometimes you can't force yourself to go through the motions anymore.

You said you wouldn't miss him. You said you wouldn't think about him at all. And yet you do, and you shame yourself and your word when you do. You know, my little brother looks so much like him that it is actually physically painful for me to look in his direction sometimes. I avoid his gaze when I can. And he is so friendly and warm towards me and I wonder what other chances I have. I wonder what exactly it is that I'm supposed to do when I'm faced with a challenge like this. Something I've never had to deal with before, and yet it's become so familiar to me! Grief, this way of life: missing you or not missing you, being taunted by your existence and the lack thereof, all at once.

_Hold my father in my heart, like a butterfly, like a special gem, I tried to make him belong to me inside of my heart and his absence becomes more apparent every day. Still, I hear your chiding voice, 'If Son Gokou was here, you would never… '_

I crossed the courtyard, searching for beauty in this world. Something to hold me over that was positive and infallible, basically.

You're here but you're not because you're with me because you're _in _me. But you aren't because you're not because you're dead and now I'm alone as a result. Mother never really made it out after she found out you left. None of us really knew how much we would come to depend on you, I guess. Your presence seemed so natural and warm and comfortable that I barely know what to do with myself without it. I know how this must sound. I know I have so much to be thankful for, and so much that I'm giving away. And yet I stubbornly took the right to mourn you even though you tried to deprive me of it.

I feel like everything you've ever told me will always be a lie because we're so far away from each other these days. I feel like you never were even here at all, in disbelief and hurt I sit in my room at nights and I laze around with a glazed look in my eyes, and look at my open books and I'm not finding solace in them anymore.

I wonder what it is that's going to make this better or bring you back or bring anything back to me at all. And yet I decided earlier that there's no point in missing you. Everyone else has already moved on in their own way. Mom has Goten. Bulma has me. I am the only one that's stayed behind, hoping that you will make one last curtain call.

Sign my autograph book. Give me a word, a sign, that you loved me back. That you understand that I need you and that it's alright that I need you. That you know why I need you and I'm not weak for needing you or for loving you or for any of this stuff. That you understand, tell me that you get it, tell me that someone gets it before I lose my mind.

"Gohan."

Videl calls my name ever so slightly. She's uncertain and been noticing the changes. She cares about me a lot; I wonder what it is that I should be doing with her. I haven't told Mom, but Bulma knows. I look up and give her a grin, "How's it going?" The words roll so easily off my tongue.

"Gohan, you're acting weird again." She puts her hands on her hips and gives me that look, a frown crossing her pretty features. Videl tries very hard to seem rough around the edges, and yet something about her seems petite and fragile to me despite her very best efforts to seem tough and harsh. In comparison to Vegeta's sultry chaos, Videl's occasional cocky show of strength makes me want to fall over in a fit of giggles. It's warped, I'm aware.

"I'm sorry." I apologize quickly, avoiding her gaze.

"Gohan." She says my name for a third time, like she's really trying to do something with it.

Another smile pops up on my face and I look over at her, "Yeah?"

"So are you… you know, alright? You weren't in class today." Her voice softens ever so slightly, conveying something dangerously close to concern.

Videl Satan is not my girlfriend. Videl Satan is not my girlfriend. Videl Satan is not my girlfriend.

"I, uh…." I tangled my hand in my hair, like I was looking for the words. I was grabbing for an excuse. "I overslept."

Something seems so forced and unnatural about this entire interaction and I get the urge to leave. Videl leaves me with all sorts of weird uncomfortable feelings and mostly I find it to be inconvenient. "Hey! Don't let this be a habit, Gohan! I vouched for you here, and my dad's not going to be happy if you skip out on work."

Your dad doesn't even ever show up at his own giving center. I guess you can call me a nice guy. I don't have the heart to tell Videl anything about her dad. But thinking about her dad inevitably leads to thoughts of my own. "It's not like that… I've never missed a shift."

"So you miss class but you don't think about skipping work?" She narrowed her eyes. "Look, just be glad that I'm working for the police still, otherwise I would have my eye on you."

Now that's a thought I don't entirely mind. I like your eyes on me, Videl, but more than that I like the idea of grabbing you by your shoulders and telling you what an epic failure your father is just to see your eyes widen and water in fear and shock. "And see," She continued, pointing emphatically at the clock, completely ignorant of everything going on inside of my skull, "You have fifteen minutes to get to work! That building is on the other side of the city! You'll never get there!"

I salute Videl with a smile, and then I'm off.

**When he taught me to be cruel to others: **

The mistreatment always trickles down. How quickly the night did fall, like a shadow cast down over my soul. One day even Bulma will see my darker side, completely as it is, no matter how hard I strive to shield her from the harsh realities.

I'd like to say Vegeta did it, and that it's his entire fault I can't control my temper or my lust for battle. But we all know that's a lie so I guess I ought to not give him all the credit. First, of course, it was Piccolo. It wasn't so hard for him to encourage me to beat Goten. Trunks was always an indulgence, but I had to be more careful with him for obvious reasons all around.

Take, for instance, right now. I'm burning furious and I'm about to grab Goten by the neck and push him up against the wall. I'm about to watch his body make rough contact with plaster and wood and crack under my force. I'm about to make his cheeks turn blue and stifle that annoying little sob of his.

He giggles as he crosses a corner. Little brat is fast.

I'm going to kill him. I'm going to watch him die. I cannot stand living in this house with Goten for another fucking minute.

I chased after him and when I caught him I found him shaking in a corner, eyes all shiny with waiting tears as I menacingly approached him. We both knew it was only a few seconds before he would start yowling for my mother, anyway, which meant I was going to enjoy this for as long as it lasted no matter how brief.

"But Mom! Gohan's _**mean**_!" Trunks shouts indignantly as he points an accusatory finger at me. He bursts through the door. Goten takes his cue.

The waterfall came, and all I only sent him a look! If only Id had more time, I would have given little brother something to cry about. I'm sick of him going through my things, rummaging around, breaking things. I do not care to play with little kids. In an instant he was in mother's arms, Bulma coming in not far behind. Trunks just had to burst through that door. Bulma took hold of her son after regarding me with that wide-eyed look that she gives me when she thinks I'm about to destroy the world.

"Goten didn't even _do _anything to him! He just yells at us all the time! It's no fun to play around here!" Trunks is crossing his arms over his chest, glowering at me. I see his father in that look and I feel uncomfortable, like I do when I'm looking at Videl.

"Enough." She says sternly to young Trunks, pulling on his collar a little more. He looks up at his mother. Even through his clear embarrassment and annoyance, I see the unfailing trust that Trunks puts in Bulma and it makes me shiver.

Mother looks over at me, still patting Goten. "Gohan, what's going on here?"

I don't really know what to say. "I'm sick of Goten and Trunks always coming in when I'm trying to study." This sounds so, so forced that even my mom doesn't buy it.

Bulma steps in. "Gohan, why don't I take you to my lab where you can get some work done while Chi gets these two little monsters fed." She lovingly pulls on her son's ear.

"Mooom!" Trunks says, turning red as he draws her name out. Goten chirps happily in mother's arms.

Mother looks over at me, and then to Bulma. "He doesn't need to go all the way to West City to study. He can study right here, the boys will just have to be quiet."

"That's no fun!" Trunks whines again. Bulma quickly and lightly slaps him to indicate his rudeness.

Goten protests as well, of course at the exact same time, "But Mommy, we didn't do anything wrong!"

Bulma looks at Mom, who looks at the two boys now grunting and crying. The room is loud and I want to slip out the back. I cough, and the boys come to a silence. "Well, Mom, actually I have a report due. I should probably go, but I'll be back before dinner."

"Do you know how to get into my lab, Gohan?" Bulma asks as my mother watches me turn and start to leave the room without a word and widened chocolate eyes.

I tilt my head over my shoulder, "No, Bulma, you ought to come and show me. Besides, I'm going to have too many papers and books to really care to fly all the way out there anyway."

"Now, boys," I hear Bulma say as she grabs her purse and her keys, "You kids need to behave while ChiChi finishes up lunch. I'm going to have to take Gohan to lunch and then I'll be right back."

Mom's still not quite keen on the idea. "What about when he wants to come home?" She sounds desperate and panicked. She's playing with her hands.

I laugh a little bit. "Mom?"

Bulma looks somewhat impatient, but responds very calmly, like my mom is china with a tough spot on it, "Then I'll watch the boys and you can come get him. Unless you want me to make lunch –"

"**No!**" Trunks begins gagging and Goten follows suit. The two boys have made a game of rolling around on the floor pretending to vomit at the idea of Bulma's cooking.

This does make me laugh, which brings light into my mother's face. The guilt I feel at this gesture is maddening, but still she is waving us goodbye like she was never upset at all, and Bulma and I are left alone outside, breathing comfortably for once.

"Oh man, I thought I was never going to get out of there. I really don't know how your mom does it, Gohan." Bulma says, immediately lighting a cigarette.

We're walking to her plane and the second that we enter and are out of my mother's keen sight, she hands the box over to me. "You look like you need one, kid."

I rubbed my face and took the box. "Bulma, why is it that you can always tell when I need to get out of there?"

"Look, our sons are best friends. My little boy can only truly sort-of play fair with ChiChi's little boy, and I can only imagine what it's like to be the object of their constant sort-of affection." Bulma chuckles a little bit. "Also, I have a confession."

"Oh?" I say, raising a brow. I'm lighting the cigarette, holding it up just using my lips. I can feel it trying to balance there.

She nodded a little bit, "Did I seem too obvious about dumping the kids on Chi?"

This is insanely funny to me, and I burst out laughing through cigarette smoke and fire. Then, I cough. Bulma looks over at me and smiles as she pats my back. She's almost sunny about it, like it's amusing to her that I'm so awkward. "I mean, yeah." I said, finally, my cheeks hurting a little bit, "but everyone knows you start to get a little crazy if you're alone with the boys too long and for whatever reason my mom really likes being around the boys."

"I like kids," Bulma says, quickly, defensively. Always trying to pardon your own sins, aren't you, Bulma?

"I know," I say, whistling a little bit. "You like kids exactly as much as I do."

"Hey! That's not _nice, _Gohan!" But she's laughing and there's a catchy little pop song on the radio and it's a good time on the way to West City with Bulma. We toss our cigarettes out the window like they're nothing.

**Not that the Dead Are Getting Older: **

(AKA Happy Birthday, Dad)

"It's okay if you cry, you know." She said the words with a reserved sort of hesitance. It was as if she didn't know entirely what to do or say to me to make things go back to normal, or however she wanted them to be. Bulma's blue eyes fix themselves on me, and oh, I think I'm going to faint.

I can't tell if I'm responding to her, or if she's just talking to me. I guess it doesn't matter. My mother made a little cake and told Goten why we're eating cake today. Goten made a huge mess of it. How often does he do these things? Bulma of course opted to decline the invitation, hoping that it would be an intimate moment for the Son family, an opportunity for the three of us to bond.

It was not long before I was back at Capsule Corporations, brushing by Vegeta in favor of speaking to Bulma, because I just can't _take it _today, not today, I've gotten it from every angle and I'll take it all from him tomorrow, but as for today, tonight, I can't _handle it! _

"Gohan, count the things you remember about him. Just count them." She's speaking to me in the gentlest voice I've ever heard. I didn't know she even had it in her to be consoling. Bulma, show me how much you understand me. Show me how much you care. Give me something, anything, please, that I can work with. I'm not even wrapped up in fury today, today I am just clouded in melancholy and I cannot play the games for now, but tomorrow, I know tomorrow is a better day and I will look forward to the abuse and opportunity to survive and flourish in it.

I look at her. She's expecting me to say something but it hurts. Worse, I can't be sarcastic to her right now. "I can remember his smile." I blink. "I can remember the way that his hands felt." Blink. "I can remember his laugh." Blink. "I can remember the speeches that he gave to bad guys before he would fight them." My eyes are empty and so is my chest and so is my head. They're all treasure boxes for Vegeta's pleasure and viewing but right now, Bulma, I'm all yours.

I am dry and I am wood, without feeling or emotion. I cannot bend; I can only break, so if I want to be whole I had better be strong. I will not cry; I won't even bother.

Bulma looks at me like something is very wrong but she says nothing.

Dad wouldn't even want me to cry.

I look over at her. I practically wince at the sympathy swelling in her eyes. She always finds a way to undermine him, how can he not be fucking her? The more he pushes for the eradication of the championship of Son Goku, the more she gently comes behind him and polishes his trophies. How does he take that, Vegeta, the fact that Bulma's his biggest fan?

One last thing I remember, as she holds my stiff body. I don't make any effort to return her embrace and she doesn't care. I feel her lips on my ear, her breath against my hair. This is what I need.

Still, I remember this one thing. I'm trying to focus on Bulma's lips on my ear and I'm too confounded with this one last thought to appreciate the simplicity of this beautiful moment. I remember this one last thing, I remember it clearly.

He was a Saiya-Jin.

* * *

**Next Time: As if Gohan wasn't confused enough, he gets a message from King Kai and now must deliver the news to everyone that his father will be returning for a whole day.  
**


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